[NLA] A conservative restoration in the land of literacy?

[George E. Demetrion]

With the proposed NIFL Board there are two up front concerns:

a)  The emphasis on childhood literacy as a potentially predominant focus
of a reconstituted NIFL Board

b)  Perhaps more likely, a stronger emphasis on the "scientific validity"
of phonemic awarenes with a parallel reduction of literacy defined as
"reading."

Beyond these up front concerns is the conservative restoration that Bush
& company seek to impose on the American public.

Even as I write, there's Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy on C-Span speaking
to a high school class on promoting American virtues in the classroom. 
The justice asked one student what was the most important event in
American freedom.  She said the "Civil Rights Movement."  Kennedy evaded
that one by asking a member of the class to draw a timeline locating the
date of the origins of American freedom to the present.  Then the Magna
Carta of 1215 was mentioned. 

Kennedy had an agenda going into the classroom in promoting his version
of American values to which he wanted the students to respond in kind. 
Slavery was viewed as a "mistake" in the ongoing saga of American
maturity. Racism as a sustained aspect of the American political culture
was not considered at all by Kennedy.  Rather, in his words, democracy
"matures" as if there was an ongoing progressive saga of American
democracy from 1776 to the present.  While I have spoken much about the
importance of American democracy on these airwaves, it is far from the
version promoted by the conservative advocates of cultural literacy.  

I wish I had the time to fully watch Kennedy's presentation and do a more
thorough analysis.  Such an analysis would be quite an instructive
exercise in civic literacy, though I'm not so sure Lynn Cheney would
approve since she thinks US history teaching should be about identifying
heroes.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, Mrs. Bush was sitting in the classroom.

While this is going on GW and Cheney are protecting the magisterial
presidency against congressional intrusion in taking a principled
position in not disclosing information on possible connections between
Enron and the current energy policy.  We won't even mention the dangers
being imposed by this magesterial presidency on the matter of civil
liberties.  Watch tonight's speech, folks, watch it closely for what's
said, the symbolism, and what's not said.

As Ashcroft, Rumsfield, Cheney, and Bush are doing their thing at home
and abroad, Mrs. Bush and Lynn Cheney are preserving American values
through a certain version of cultural literacy and phonics,  protecting
the citadels against the ramparts of progressive education.  Needless to
say, the name of John Dewey is an epitath of the conservative restoration
in public education.

As this issue of the NIFL Board, the selection of the next director, and
the direction of NIFL are being discussed, I believe it's important to
keep these broader issues in mind.  While it is certainly important to
establish a Board that is more amenable to adult literacy, there are
these underlying conservative tendencies pointing toward a restoration.  

There's adult literacy and there's adult literacy.  As the policy sector
seeks to devise a coherent field strategy, a too conservative approach
will be susceptible to a conservative co-optation.  In certain
circumstances a principled and coherent critical opposition is preferable
to phyrric victories.  One thinks of the National Reporting System.  

One wonders what the vision of Bush & company is in its perception of the
role of NIFL as part of a conservative restoration in the promotion of
American values, business, standardized testing, phonics, and oh yes, of
course, "scientific research."  Indeed, one wonders.

George Demetrion

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